Summary

Chapter 18, entitled "The Dream," interweaves a report on a four-day encounter between Israeli-Arab and Jewish teens at Neve Shalom with the author's concluding thoughts on the chances for peace in the Middle East.

Neve Shalom was conceived in 1970 as an interfaith community. When Shipler visited in 1984, it had failed to attract many permanent settlers. Muslims were underrepresented. The founders were more successful in organizing workshops for mixed Arab-Jewish groups. It and like-minded programs, which Shipler briefly summarizes, ran on shoestring budgets, without support from the government, which poured millions of dollars into abusive, belligerent settlements on the West Bank. Small American grants alone kept Neve Shalom in business.

Its program runs four days, three to allow the teens to break down barriers and confront stereotypes, then one day for intense confrontation over the political issues that tear their peoples apart. Shipler shows the two groups arriving, nervous...